USAA Purchases Downtown Tower, Announces Expansion

USAA owns One Riverwalk Place (left) and recently purchased the Bank of America Plaza building (center).

Updated August 17, 2017

USAA officials confirmed Wednesday that the company is growing its presence in downtown San Antonio and expanding its footprint in Plano and Tampa, Fla.

USAA’s Real Estate Company purchased the Bank of America Plaza building at 300 Convent St.

“It is one of the premier buildings in San Antonio and is an outstanding addition to our existing portfolio of holdings here,” Samira Bitar, senior director of asset management at the USAA Real Estate Company, stated in an email. “We hope to raise it to an even higher standard, through a capital improvement plan that is still in development.”

To accommodate the insurance and banking company’s continued growth on its home turf in San Antonio, approximately 1,500 employees will move in late 2017 from the corporate headquarters at 9800 Fredericksburg Rd. to new office space at the Vista Corporate Center, near the intersection of I-10 and UTSA Boulevard, and the WestRidge II building located at La Cantera. USAA’s information technology and insurance professionals will move into the two buildings to create additional capacity in the Fredericksburg office.

“USAA continues to evaluate further expansion of its hometown presence, but we have no additional plans to announce at this time,” USAA Director of External Communication Matt Hartwig said.

The company also will grow its North Texas regional hub with a new building next to its present location in Plano’s Legacy Business Park. The new 150,000-sq. ft. office building adjacent to USAA’s existing location in Legacy Corporate Center will house up to 850 employees once completed in early 2019, adding to the 850 or so employees already working in the area.

In Tampa, USAA plans to build a second 240,000-sq. ft. office building in its Crosstown Center location. The new facility, slated for completion in early 2019, will accommodate approximately 1,000 employees, bringing USAA’s potential capacity in Tampa to nearly 4,500 employees.

“For 95 years, we have focused on serving the financial needs of the military community,” USAA CEO Stuart Parker stated. “Our investments today better prepare us to care for our members for years to come.”

With more than 12 million members, USAA’s global workforce stands at about 32,000 employees, with almost 19,000 in the San Antonio area.

“San Antonio is a fundamental part of USAA’s history,” Hartwig said, “and [it] remains an important part of its future growth strategy.”

Disclosure: USAA is a Rivard Report business member. For a full list of supporters, click here.

Iris Gonzalez writes about technology, life science, and veteran affairs. She won the Texas Veterans Commission Media Excellence Awards for her 2016 Veterans Day story "Life as a Veteran: What Veterans Wished Civilians Understood" published by the Rivard Report.